The University of Texas at Austin Hosts EGaDS Annual 24-Hour Game Jam

AUSTIN, Texas – During the last weekend of September, the Electronic Game Developers Society (EGaDS), a student-run organization, and The University of Texas at Austin’s Game Development Program hosted the annual 24-hour Game Jam. More than 70 students came together on September 27th in a competition to create an entirely new game from this year’s randomly selected theme of “redundant” in only 24-hours at The Bill & Melinda Gates Computer Science Complex and Dell Computer Science Hall (GDC).

Members of the University’s Game Development Program and its industry partners at Multimedia Games, Jobs2Careers, Scopely and Electronic Arts (EA) cosponsored and judged this year’s event. The judging panel, comprised of recruiters and industry professionals, announced the three winning teams during the award ceremony held in the GDC on September 28th.

First place went to Team Not Last Place, which consisted of Blaine Brezina, a Studio Art major, and Eric Chao, Ka Seng Chou, Spencer Bowdon and Alan Ma, all Computer Science majors, for their game Echo. Second and third place went to teams JAKS games and Five Programmers, respectively.

The winning game, Echo, had the player repeatedly trying to escape the same room but being progressively shrunken down in size with each succeeding level. “The repetition of gameplay with the slightly altered challenge of how to complete it exemplified the Game Jam’s theme of redundant,” said Paul Toprac, associate director and senior lecturer of the Game Development Program.

“This year we saw the attendance more than double from last year and the games produced were all fantastic,” said EGaDS President Darwin Pek, “so we are already excited for next year’s Game Jam!” The next Game Jam will be held in the Fall semester of 2014.

For more information, contact: Cameron M. Weed, Game Development Program, 512 475 6602.